Challenges in the Deployment of Visuo-Haptic Virtual Environments on the Internet

TL;DR

This paper examines the significant challenges of deploying visuo-haptic virtual environments over the Internet, focusing on network limitations and recent advances to address these issues.

Contribution

It provides a structured analysis of current challenges and recent progress in deploying haptic-based virtual systems on the Internet.

Findings

Network performance limits hinder real-time haptic feedback

Recent advances have improved understanding of deployment challenges

Progress has been made to overcome Internet-based deployment issues

Abstract

Haptic sensory feedback has been shown to complement the visual and auditory senses, improve user performance and provide a greater sense of togetherness in collaborative and interactive virtual environments. However, we are faced with numerous challenges when deploying these systems over the present day Internet. The most significant of these challenges are the network performance limitations of the Wide Area Networks. In this paper, we offer a structured examination of the current challenges in the deployment of haptic-based distributed systems by analyzing the recent advances in the understanding of these challenges and the progress that has been made to overcome them.